September 10, 2012

August 08, 2012

It's one of those days when the news cycle is moving faster than I can write about it. As of Wednesday afternoon, the chatter online is all about the Romney campaign's unexpected decision to cite his Massachusetts health reforms as proof that he cares about average Americans facing financial hardship.
The decision is unexpected because Romney has spent the past two years vowing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, whose scheme for expanding insurance coverage is basically a national version of what Romney did in Massachusetts.

August 02, 2012

Did Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid really hear from an investor in Bain Capital that Mitt Romney didn’t pay income tax for 10 years? Probably not. Even if he did, what are the odds that this “information” was just uninformed speculation? Pretty good. “Now, do I know that that’s true?” Reid told the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein and Ryan Grim. “Well, I’m not certain.” Brilliantly played.

August 02, 2012

Did Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid really hear from an investor in Bain Capital that Mitt Romney didn't pay income tax for 10 years? Probably not. Even if he did, what are the odds that this "information" was just uninformed speculation? Pretty good. "Now, do I know that that's true?" Reid told the Huffington Post's Sam Stein and Ryan Grim. "Well, I'm not certain." Brilliantly played.

June 08, 2012

Most experts expect the Supreme Court will issue its ruling on the Affordable Care Act in the last full week of June. Few seem certain of what that ruling will say. The Court could uphold the law its entirety. It could strike down the law in its entirety. Or it could strike down part while leaving the rest in place.
One very real possibility is that the Supreme Court invalidates the law's most controversial element, the individual mandate, but nothing else. Most of the commentary I've seen suggests such an outcome would be just as devastating as a decision to invalidate the law entirely.

March 27, 2012

Everybody calm down. And when I say everybody, I include myself.
Tuesday’s oral argument at the Supreme Court was not the finest hour for health care reform, for the philosophy of activist government, or for Solicitor General Don Verrilli. But oral arguments don’t typically change the outcome of cases. They are important primarily for the signals they send about the justices’ thinking.

November 10, 2011

[with contributions from Matt O’Brien and Darius Tahir]
Health care reform wasn’t the only issue Mitt Romney dodged last night. As Greg Sargent and Sam Stein point out today, Romney also refused to take a clear position on whether to extend a payroll tax break set to expire at year’s end. Here’s what Romney said when moderator John Harwood first posed the question:
I don’t want to raise taxes on people in the middle of a recession. Of course not.